(My lousy mobile connection won't let me into the publishing dashboard again. I'm looking for somewhere to post the chapter...)
Countless funds, supplies, and lives had been consumed by the endless war.
Then turmoil broke out at home. The Long-Haired Bandits seized the chance to rise and occupied half of the Central Land.
The Great Chu army could only hastily sign an armistice with the nations it had been fighting. Just like that, a war that had cost millions of troops and untold supplies, and plunged the domestic economy into hardship, came to an end.
The blow to the army's morale and the people's spirit was even worse. Countless businesses that had been waiting for wartime profits went bankrupt.
In the end, a rebellion brought down the Great Chu imperial family.
And the countries that had just signed the armistice, including Russia and the Sunset Empire, took up arms once more and marched straight into Great Chu.
Even Japan and Korea, two small countries that had once been its vassals, turned their guns around and sent troops into Great Chu.
The whole country seemed on the verge of falling apart and sinking into ruin.
Countless patriots surged forward, and heroes from every region gave their lives for their country.
For a nation with such deep foundations and such a weighty civilizational legacy, the more desperate the hour, the more people came forward, one after another, to save it from destruction.
In the end, Emperor Founding Ancestor, then only a prince far away in North America, won the fleet's allegiance. In exchange for relinquishing all interests in North America, he secured supplies from there.
Then he led the fleet home. As it sailed east, before it had even reached shore, the various forces that had splintered apart began pledging their allegiance.